Lawsuit

The US Federal Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday denied Samsung’s request to reconsider the court’s decision to uphold damages awarded in its patent infringement case, reports the San Jose Mercury News. The damages amount to more than $400 million.

This is just the latest turn in what seems to be a never-ending patent case between Samsung and Apple. In 2012, a jury found Samsung guilty of infringing on Apple’s patents and awarded the iPhone maker $1 billion in damages, which has since been cut in half.

A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld a 2013 decision finding Apple guilty for conspiring with publishers to raise e-book prices, reports The Wall Street Journal. As a result, the company is expected to pay a $450 million settlement it agreed to with private plaintiffs, 30+ states and the DOJ last year.

“We conclude that the district court correctly decided that Apple orchestrated a conspiracy among the publishers to raise e-book prices,” wrote Second Circuit Judge Debra Ann Livingston. The conspiracy “unreasonably restrained trade” in violation of the Sherman Act, the federal antitrust law, she wrote.

Apple has revoked Monster’s MFi license in wake of its Beats lawsuit, reports The Wall Street Journal. Monster, the A/V company who manufactured headphones for Beats in its early days, filed a lawsuit against the company in January for duping it out of potential proceeds from the Apple acquisition.

Monster’s general counsel David Tognotti said Apple’s move to pull its MFi license is in retribution for the suit, and that it can significantly disrupt their business—which still involves building premium headphones. “It shows a side of Apple that consumers don’t see very often,” he said. “Apple can be a bully.”

Monday, The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said it’s ruled that Samsung violated Apple’s design patents but did not infringe on the Cupertino firm’s trade dress intellectual property.

As reported by Reuters, the appeals court has now reversed part of Apple’s $930 million verdict versus Samsung, ordering that the penalty be adjusted accordingly.

Apple and A123 Systems, maker of advanced batteries, submitted a court filing this week saying they are nearing a settlement regarding their engineer poaching lawsuit, reports the Boston Globe. They’ve “reached an agreement, signed a term sheet, and are in the process of drafting a final agreement.”

The lawsuit made headlines earlier this year, when A123 claimed that Apple was hiring away its top scientists and engineers to build a competing battery business. The news broke amidst reports that the Cupertino firm had taken an interest in electric cars, and had begun work on larger battery packs.

Swedish telecommunications giant Ericsson has extended its patent lawsuit against Apple to Europe, filing separate lawsuits in the United Kingdom, Germany and the Netherlands over alleged patent infringement, Reuters reported Friday.

Ericsson is alleging that Apple has been using its patents without a legitimate license. It unloaded legal barrage against the iPhone maker over the same matter in the United States in February 2015.

Things could get ugly for Google as the Internet giant lost a UK appeal in the Safari cookie tracking case, potentially opening the door to litigation from the millions of British users, BBC News reported Friday.

The case revolves around Google’s practice to continue tracking users of Apple’s Safari browser via cookies even after they had changed their browser settings to block cookies, in order to target them with advertising.

US District Judge Lucy Koh granted preliminary approval on Wednesday for a settlement between Apple, Google, Adobe, and Intel and their former employees. The payout is said to be worth around $415 million, and would effectively end the long-running anti-poaching lawsuit.

Following a $533 million loss in a lawsuit a small Texas-based company leveled against it over patent violation, Apple is now facing new legal challenges.

Friday, the Swedish telecommunications giant has unloaded legal barrage against the iPhone maker.

The move follows Apple’s refusal to re-sign a global licensing contract with Ericsson in mid-January. Bloomberg noted that Apple had been paying royalties for Ericsson’s patents related to mobile technologies, but the global license agreement expired last month and hasn’t been renewed since.

A federal jury in Tyler, Texas ruled on Tuesday that Apple must pay $532.9 million in damages to Smartflash LLC. Bloomberg reports that the jury found iTunes to infringe on its patents related to “managing access through payment systems.”

The original complaint was filed in 2013, with Smartflash asking for $852 million. The company argued it was entitled to a percentage of sales of Apple’s devices, including the iPhone, iPad and Mac computers, that were used to access iTunes.

Electric car battery maker A123 Systems filed a lawsuit against Apple earlier this month for poaching its employees, reports Law360. The company says the Cupertino firm began an “aggressive campaign” around June of last year to recruit some of its most critical staffers for a new large-scale battery division.

This directly violates the company’s noncompete and nondisclosure agreements, says A123 Systems, and the poaching has resulted in a substantial loss of investment and left them scrambling to find replacements. It’s asking the court for undisclosed damages and a 1-year order, barring them from moving.

Apple, Google, Intel and Adobe have reached an agreement that would settle their long-standing antitrust class action lawsuit with Silicon Valley employees, reports Reuters. The suit, filed in 2011, accused the 4 tech giants of conspiring to avoid poaching each other’s employees in an effort to keep a lid on salaries.